A Few Broken Bones
by azurefang
Summary: Damon was beaten badly by Kol. Surely he had broken bones beyond one arm.
1. Chapter 1

A FEW BROKEN BONES

Disclaimer: The Vampire Diaries does not belong to me.

A/N Kol did a good job of beating on Damon, who had to have more than a few bruises and a broken arm. I know vampires heal quickly, but come on!

Elena stood amid the clutter of Crazy Mary's living room. She was shaking. Kol had just left. He could have killed her, had wanted to kill her, but he had not because his brother Klaus had forbidden any of them to do it. It was weird, but Klaus was her protection in this case.

She looked down at Damon who was lying mostly face-down on the floor. She knew he wasn't dead, but she also knew he was injured quite badly. Kol had kicked him and had pounded him with the baseball bat. She had heard bones break. Arms and legs. His spine, even. It was surprising that crazy Kol hadn't staked Damon, but he had been more intent on punishing him. The healing could be agony.

She knelt beside her friend and spoke his name. He didn't answer because he was unconscious. If Kol wanted Damon to be suffering, he shouldn't have knocked him out. She reached out and felt the lump on the back of his head. It was no wonder he was out. There was also a trickle of blood coming from his ear. A skull fracture. She couldn't do anything about that, but she realized that she needed to straighten his arms and legs to reduce the pain of healing, and the best time to do it was while he was unconscious.

His back was broken, she was sure. He would heal, but he would heal fastest if things were lined up. Gritting her teeth and ignoring the nauseating sounds of bone ends grating against each other, she rolled him onto his back. Moving to his feet, she grasped both of his ankles and leaned back, pulling as hard as she could, actually moving his body a little on the dirty carpet.

After putting his feet back down, she felt along his legs through the denim of his jeans. It was really weird to feel the shin bones move as the aligned ends pulled together. There was no way she could tell anything about his spine, except to make his body as straight as she could, which she had done when pulling on his legs.

There was some blood on his pants legs and even a small spot near his zipper. Kol had kicked him there, but she didn't check it out. Whatever the damage there, it would heal without any help from her, she figured.

She moved to his arms. His left was easy to straighten, but his right had more than one fracture. He had tried to defend himself with his right more than his left. It had been a losing battle for Damon. Although he had moved in a blur a couple of times, Kol had been faster and stronger. She hated that Original with his sadistic grin.

Having finished with his arms, she slipped her hand inside his jacket and felt his ribs. Some of them were broken. She left them alone, figuring they would work themselves back into place. She looked at his collar bones and his jaw. They looked all right. His head was turned a little, so she moved to a position beyond his head, put her hands on the sides of his face and pulled a little. She hoped it helped his neck if anything was out of alignment there.

Having done all she could, she moved again and sat beside him. He had bruises on his handsome face and a puffy lip. She reached out and moved his lip a little to see if he had any broken teeth. If a vampire lost teeth, did they regrow? What happened if a vampire lost a fang? Were there one-fanged undead out there in the world?

She had strong feeling for Damon. There was no doubt about that. The doubt lay in the fact that she had not yet been able to honestly evaluate just how strong the feelings were compared to the confused feeling she still had for Stefan. The real love she still had for the damaged younger brother.

She glanced up at the old woman pinned to the wall by a long stake through the heart. She could see that the stake was a broken wooden baseball bat. Considering that Damon had used the same to run Kol through the chest earlier, it was a miracle that Kol hadn't done the same to Damon.

She heard Damon take a groaning breath. He cried out and she figured it hurt his ribs to breath. He moved his left arm, raising it to feel his head as he opened his eyes and looked around in alarm.

"Hold still, Damon," she urged. "He's gone. Just hold still so you can heal. Do you hear me?"

He nodded slightly and the look of alarm left, to be replaced with a look of pain. He grit his teeth and stared at the ceiling for a long moment. Then he looked at Elena.

"Did he hurt you?"

"Not really. How do you feel? What hurts? I tried to straighten your arms and legs. I think your spine is damaged."

"I feel damaged all over," Damon said with a snort, and then he grunted with rib pain. He lay still. "You're sure he's gone?"

"Yes."

Elena watched him as he closed his eyes and rested, waiting for his body to repair the worst of his injuries. He used his left hand to gently feel along his ribs. He felt the crotch of his jeans where one of the sore spots was and seemed reassured that everything was there. After another minute, he told Elena he could get up and he did with her help. He was a little unsteady and she held onto his right arm.

"My right arm isn't right yet," he said, gritting his teeth. She let go and he grasped his right with his left, gave a sharp yank, felt the bone rebreak and then pull together. It hurt, but it would be normal. "That's better."

They were ready to face the next step in their quest.

A/N I felt the urge to write this when Damon just stood up and adjusted his right arm. No harm done. Yeah, sure. Comments? Please.


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter 2

Disclaimer: The Vampire Diaries still does not belong to me.

A/N I tried to publish this earlier today and I clicked on the wrong place. I do apologize to all of you who tried to read Chapter 2 and it wasn't there!

A/N I wrote "A Few Broken Bones" and "One Bruised Heart" as separate vignettes. However, if put together in chronological order as the story of the Denver trip, "Heart" is like Chapter One, "Bones" is Chapter Two and this little story is Chapter Three. In order to put at least two of them together, I'm adding this to "Bones" as Chapter 2. Confused?

Thank you all for Reviews, Favorite Stories, etc. You all are wonderful and so encouraging.

BROKEN CHAIN

The emotional atmosphere in the car could have been nicer, but there was still a bit of tension between Damon and Elena. For the most part they rode in silence, concentrating on their own thoughts.

Elena felt that going to Denver had been a good idea because it had been great to be with Jeremy again and to see that he was all right. But then, she and Damon had found out that Kol Mikaelson had actually befriended him! Well, that "friendship" certainly was not a good idea and Damon had ended it by staking Kol. Of course, it was also not really a good idea to infuriate an unstable Original vampire, who couldn't be killed by that kind of ordinary wood.

Elena was pleased that Jeremy had been successful in contacting double-dead Rose, who had given them the lead to her creator, Mary, a resident of nearby Kansas. Still, it had been very embarrassing for Elena that her brother had witnessed the passionate kiss and confrontation between her and Damon at the motel, but what was done was done. That is, except for the tension she still felt from Damon.

She and Damon had left Jeremy at school in Denver and hoped he would be safe. At that time, they didn't know that Kol had gone after Crazy Mary.

Elena now felt bad about Mary. The old vampire had been around a long time, doing her thing (she was apparently a serious hoarder) and probably not bothering anyone. Damon had found blood bags in her dirty refrigerator and hundreds of empties scattered in the junk-filled house. Unfortunately, it turned out that Mary was no help at all in providing information, due to the fact that Kol had reached her first and had run her through with a broken, wooden baseball bat. It was probably the same sharp piece of wood Damon had used on him. That was sort of ironic.

It had been a little scary for Elena when they found that Kol was still in the house. He was really sadistic and he had given Damon a brutal thrashing. Although Damon seemed to have recovered completely from the beating, she was still concerned. She knew he still was sore here and there. And he kept chewing the rough edge of a fingernail that had been broken in the fight. Unfortunately, neither of them had fingernail clippers with them.

Now, here she and Damon were, driving along with no further goal in mind other than getting back to Virginia. She hoped they could do that without any more emotional clashes between them and no run-ins with Kol.

"I wish we knew where Kol was right now," Elena said as she stared out at the gently rolling countryside of eastern Colorado. They had barely entered Kansas in order to find Mary's house. Now they were heading back toward the Denver airport. "Jeremy knows to keep an eye open for him, but what can he really do if he sees that nasty brute watching him? I mean, Klaus ordered Kol to keep an eye on my brother. He's going to keep doing it and hoping he gets the okay to kill Jeremy." It was a very worrisome idea.

"There's nothing we can do about it," Damon said, staring at the straight highway as he drove. "Unless we come up with a proper white oak stake, we can't kill the bastard. We don't even have a dagger and oak ashes to immobilize him."

"Why do you think Kol went after Mary? How did he know we were looking for her? I mean, do you think he already knows who belongs to what blood lines? Do you think Klaus does?" She didn't really expect Damon to have answers to those questions.

"I guess it's possible. I could believe Klaus might know, just because he's been active for a thousand years. Kol has spent most of that time in a coffin."

"Even if we get hold of Alaric's stake, we can't use it until we find some answers about your 'ancestry.' So far, we keep hitting dead ends," Elena said, stating the obvious.

He just grunted.

"Maybe Stefan has coaxed Alaric to tell where his stake is," she said to keep the conversation going.

"From what Stefan said over the phone, Alaric is not being cooperative. Well, I guess _he_ is trying to, but his alter ego isn't."

"You think Stefan really will beat the information out of Alaric or his alter ego?" Elena asked, finding it hard to believe. The Stefan she loved would never do that. The cold, unfeeling Stefan would. She suspected the young man she loved was seesawing back and forth. She wondered how much control he had over that.

She glanced at Damon when he didn't answer. He looked a bit sullen around the mouth. The other thing that had not gone well on this trip was the serious conflict between her and Damon based on his love for her and her indecision about where her heart lay.

She had relished the passionate kiss they had shared. In fact, she had initiated it. Damon could really turn her on! It had been so stupid of her to let it happen. She had certainly felt him respond and then, of course, they had argued when she had backed off. She couldn't blame him for still being upset about that. Damn, she needed to figure things out!

The last thing she wanted was for Damon to turn off his feelings totally. Stefan might continue to waver back and forth, refusing to give himself to her as long as he was like that. In the end, she could lose both of them. It worried her sick to think of that.

In fact, if they killed the wrong Original, Damon and Stefan might both die and that would be a terrible tragedy.

"What difference does it make if we get Ric's stake?" Damon said, still thinking on that subject. "Klaus is waiting for us to turn it over to him. Jeremy's safety and that of others depend on that."

"I know," Elena said. After a long pause, she ventured to say, "I wonder how many vampires around the world dropped dead when Finn died." She wondered how many of them had really been decent citizens. With one blow, a hundred beings might have been killed!

"We have no way of knowing," Damon said. "Don't dwell on it, Elena." He could tell it bothered her. He didn't mention that the deaths might start a vendetta by those who loved the now-gone-forever ones.

"Do you think there is a possibility that with Rose and Mary gone, the chain is broken?" Elena asked. "I mean, say your line through Katherine, Rose and Mary goes back to Kol. If Kol was killed, would the deaths of that line stop at Mary and Rose, who are already gone? They are now missing links in the chain."

Damon frowned, wondering. "Is that possible? What if it is? Many vampires have died over the years, all of them descended from someone. If it's true that we all go back to the Mikaelsons, and I'm _not_ convinced that they truly are the _only _Original family, then it's possible our chain _has_ been broken. The only proof we've seen of a chain is when Finn, Sage and what's-his-name died, one after the other. They were each a direct descendant of the other, like father, daughter and grandson."

"Klaus and his siblings must have turned a lot of people in a thousand years. A good number of them must have been killed one way or another. The lines of descent could be broken anywhere," Elena reasoned.

"I agree. I wonder if Esther knew that she might be killing hundreds of vampires if she killed her kids," Damon mused, still chewing on the fingernail.

"When I talked to her, it seemed like she was only thinking of the kids. I bet she didn't know about the connection to the others. I also think it would have devastated Bonnie if she found out she had helped kill so many, even if she doesn't like vampires," Elena said, knowing how sensitive Bonnie was.

"Mikael must not have known, either," Damon said.

"I don't want you or Stefan or Caroline to die, Damon. You know that, don't you? I don't think I could stand it." She reached out and gave his arm a squeeze, only a brief one, and then she let go.

"Yes, Elena, I know," Damon said with a sigh containing a hint of annoyance. "You need someone to turn you on and light up your life now and then." He rolled his eyes.

"Damon!" How could he joke about something so serious. "Okay. You're still angry with me."

"No, not at all. It's the pain."

"The pain? Are you still in pain from that beating?" she asked with increased concern and she looked at him intently.

"I'm in pain from the invisible stake you drove through my miserable heart," Damon growled.

"Oh. I guess it'll be a while before you can forgive me for that." She frowned and stared out the window.

They rode in silence for some miles with the radio playing something softly.

"Maybe your line goes back to Elijah. He's really a decent guy, Damon. I can feel it. I like him."

"You _like_ him, huh? Does he light your fire, too?" Damon said with a snort and an eye roll. " Sure, he acts like a gentleman, all quiet, proper and reserved. And I suppose he's good-looking. But he set you up to possibly be killed by Rebekah, or have you forgotten?"

"To save himself and his sibs. I can't fault him for that."

"I can. He's as bad as Klaus. In a more subtle way, he's just as dangerous."

"I suppose," Elena said with a sigh. "I don't know where all this is going. Where is it going to end? Who is going to die next? And I just know _someone _will."

"I'm sure. Let's hope it isn't someone we really care about," Damon said as he spotted the sign directing them to the airport where they would return the rental car and catch a flight home. "And let's hope your idea is right, that the chain is broken."

A/N This is the end of the Denver trip stories. I hope you liked this little wrap-up. Now, back to Mystic Falls. Any comments?


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